Today's red post collection includes Ask Riot on the LCU and the Death Recap system, Doom Bots of Doom back in the RGMQ this weekend, a look at new LoL facebook stickers, a rundown on 2016 ranked rewards as the season winds down in under two weeks, additional context on the pre-season stealth changes, and more!

Ask Riot: League Client Update and Death Recaps

This week, we’re talking about why we’re updating the Client and what’s going on with Death Recaps.

Why are you updating the client?

Most games don't ever need to replace their client. But League has been happily chugging along for the better part of the decade, and some of its parts have started to show their age.

We've pushed our loyal little client to its limits, but it's built on old, outdated tech—it just isn't designed to support the things we want to do for League's future. So, we're rebuilding it. The client update is a from-the-ground-up rework of League's home. Outside the game itself, the client affects every aspect of your League experience: the store, lobbies, chat, champ select, all that jazz.

For players, the client update matters for two main reasons: better visuals and better tech.

Visuals

Look at the legacy client. Seriously, look at the profile page. What is that, a scrapbook for wizards? Now look at the runes page. Why are there conch shells on magic resist glyphs? The answer: nobody knows. Because the League client was put together in pieces over many years, there's no visual consistency between pages. With the update, we’ve redesigned it with Hextech magic for a cohesive visual experience that fits the look and feel of League of Legends. It looks like this.

Tech

The current client runs on Adobe's AIR technology, aka the hottest tech of 2009. We decided to build the underlying technology from scratch based (more or less) on Chromium. It's allowing us to fix longstanding client bugs and deliver new features like replays.

Short version is the Death Recap system has some pretty large structural flaws that make it hard to incorporate new things and a pain to maintain.

Last year, you might remember when we did a large pass on Death Recaps. We were able to make them more accurate (people were no longer “dying” to flash), but we hit an impasse: without rebuilding the entire system, death recaps would require significant, ongoing maintenance to stay accurate. We are already seeing the improvements we made then then start to unravel.

If we decide to focus on Death Recaps again, we would want to rebuild the entire foundation to correct its flawed structure. The reason we have not done this yet is because it would require shifting resources away from something else, and, as of right now, there are other things we are prioritizing. If Flash pops up as a thing that killed you (again), we may do some maintenance work.

Meddler, Lead Gameplay Designer

Have a question? Head over to Ask Riot and sign into your League account. Check out the Dos and Don’ts, then ask away.

We promise to read every question, but we can’t guarantee they’ll all get answers. Some questions may already be answered elsewhere, and some won’t be right for Ask Riot. This isn’t the best place to announce new features, for example, and we might skip conversations on issues we’ve talked about in depth before (though we can clarify individual points).

We are listening, though, so keep asking. We’ll make sure your questions are heard by the Rioters working on the stuff you’re curious about."

Last week we announced that we don't currently have plans for bringing over the legacy client's item set creator feature. There was player outcry, so we're having active discussions at Riot about it. I'll keep y'all updated as these conversations continue.

In the meantime, any item sets you make will still work when you use the updated client. And even if you upgrade your client as part of open beta, you'll still be able to access the legacy client and all its features for tweaks to your item sets. Not a perfect solution, but you won't lose your stuff."

RGMQ - Doom Bots of Doom + Updated Schedule

"Team up to overcome the cursed Doom Bots of Doom and their evil overlord before everything you love and cherish is DOOMED!

Survive the mayhem… but beware what lies ahead.

The Doom Bots wreak their diabolical havoc with not one, but two playable modes. Battle the bots in standard mode, or test your limits with a near-infinite gauntlet of increasingly difficult levels.

You choose the difficulty setting, so there’s no telling* how long you’ll postpone your inevitable demise, but any players who defeat a Doom Bots level will earn the Little Devil Teemo Icon for all eternity.**

*Seriously, we don’t have any idea how far you’ll get.

**Any players who leave a game of Doom Bots forfeit their icon. Icon will appear in your account up to one week after defeating the Doom Bots.

We may be slowing down the RGM queue rotation cadence for the next few patches as we’re working on some new things. You’ll also see a few more repeat modes as we get closer to the end of the year, but we'll be teaching the ol’ queue some new tricks in the future.

Doom Bots will be playable from October 28 through October 31. GLHF!"

Don't forget to check out THE TEEMOING for more on Doom Bots and new Halloween content!

[PBE Stealth Changes] Stealth Abilities, Vision and the new Control Ward

Riot Colin here to share some context on changes to stealth abilities, vision and the new Control Ward.

STEALTH:

STEALTH Goals/Problem Statement

After finishing up our normal preseason vision analysis, we came up with a handful of high value vision-related projects. We decided to tackle Stealth not only for its relevance to the Assassins, but because of its status as a long standing pain point in our game. We identified two systemic problems with stealth abilities in League:

Unhealthy and Inaccessible Counter-play: A player’s response to stealth abilities on live is Vision Wards (“Pinks”). There are a handful of problems with Vision Wards as a counter:

1. Vision Wards remove all the power from a stealth state since they both reveal you and make you targetable.

Plainly put, they are a hard-counter. When you combine this binary counter with immediate activation, stealth abilities’ power and satisfaction are detrimentally eroded by this counter-play. For example: Akali’s Twilight Shroud, an ability that should give Akali a moment of respite, feels unreliable and frankly unsafe.
This hard counter also causes a secondary problem for champion balance. Dropping Vision Wards in-combat is a skill that is not well developed in a majority of LoL players, but which is ever-present at high skill levels. This causes stealth champions to be powerful at average skill levels and hamstrung in higher level play.This distortion in Vision Ward usage forces us between a rock and a hard place. If stealth champions can’t rely on their stealth then we have to increase power elsewhere in their kit. This additional power exacerbates the balance for a majority of our players where champions get increased power and effective stealth due to infrequent countering.

2. Vision Wards cost money and take up an inventory slot.

When a stealth champion is picked, it is common for the opposing team’s champions to have to keep Vision Wards on-hand to tactically counter the stealth. We do not think it is appropriate for the choice of a stealth champion to impose such a large financial restriction on the opposing team. This restriction means that the opposing team has to pour their resources into temporary tactical advantages at the expense of investing in their character’s permanent power. The Stealth champion, however just builds permanent power.

Stealth is Unnecessarily Hard to Parse: Each of our stealth abilities’ VFX, SFX and tooltips are different.

This lack of shared language makes it difficult for* players to quickly recognize stealth as well as learn it as a general concept. This increases player frustration and leads to slower recognition of stealth’s mechanics and counters (Pink Wards, Sweeper).

STEALTH Changes:

Stealth Keywords and Unified Visuals

There are two general use cases for stealth: the strategic (Evelynn) and the tactical (Akali). We created two keywords so we can introduce counters that are appropriate for each case and to increase clarity.

Stealth - Camouflage: This is stealth that is primarily strategic in nature. It allows you to hide your position on the map, but not reliably in combat. You are revealed by nearby Turrets, Enemy Champions and Control Wards. (Will be further discussed below)

Stealth - Invisibility: This is stealth that is primarily tactical in nature. It allows you to safely maneuver and mitigate damage in fights. You are still revealed by nearby turrets because turrets are important as safe places for champions to retreat to in times of danger.
Along with these new keywords we are introducing common visuals for entering and exiting stealth states. These should help with legibility when you are playing against stealth units.

Soft-counters for Stealth

To avoid the hard countering problem we are introducing a soft-counter that should be accessible to most champions. If you damage an enemy champion while they are stealthed you will get a ghostly outline at their position. This should feel fairly intuitive and allows you to track stealthed enemies without completely nullifying the power of their abilities.

Champion Ability Counter’s for Stealth

There are currently champion abilities which reveal enemy units. We think that this generally adds interesting counter-play between champions. That being said, the reliability of an abilities stealth reveal makes a big difference here. E.G: Lee Sin’s Q has counterplay. His E however is a lot more reliable and could invalidate enemy stealthed champions abilities. We want to see how the stealth world shakes out before we decide what to do these abilities, but we will be keeping an eye on these matchups.

Replace Vision Wards with Control Wards

We are removing warding as a hard-counter against stealth. Control Wards will not reveal Invisible units. Control Wards will still reveal Camouflage as we think their is fair gameplay around a Camouflaged character skirting around enemy wards.

CONTROL WARDS and VISION:

For this preseason, we took a look at the different ways players could deny vision:

Sweepers: Used to clear pre-existing vision.

Vision Wards: Used to clear pre-existing vision and provide awareness of future vision that enters an area.

One chunk of design space that is not represented above is the ability to define an explicitly vision-free area. Can you drop a ward that will pre-emptively let you erect vision defenses. This was our inspiration for the Control Ward.

The Control Ward not only reveals nearby enemy wards and traps, but also disables them allowing you to create a safe place. We call this effect, “Jamming” a ward. When a Control Ward is jamming something, it will reveal itself through of Fog of War. This allows players to react to their wards’ denial and clear the Control Ward from a distance. The vision blocking mechanic adds a sizeable amount of power to vision denial. For this reason, there are some levers we can change if Control Wards prove to be overly punishing to net vision. (EG: Vision/Jamming range, ward health, ward health regeneration)

The Night is Dark and Full of Terrors: A final note on vision: We are going to be keeping a close eye on how dark/light the map is. We know you all have concerns over an overly dark map (especially with Assassins arriving). We do too. Still, rest assured that we will be monitoring vision closely to make necessary changes."

As for how the red trinkets will interact with stealth and camo units, Riot Colin noted:

"Both will give you the red shadows for invisible and camouflaged units."

When asked about invisibility being too strong without an item to reveal, Riot Colinnoted:

"Quote:

Are you concerned with how strong invisibility will be? We can't always fight by turrets.

Invisibility will definitely be stronger. It should also be more reliable power which we can balance around."

Meddler on Increasing # of Bans in 2017

In a boards thread checking in to see if Riot still plans look into increasing the number of champion select bans next year, Meddler replied

"We're still planning to look into 10 bans once the new client's out (changes needed to champ select for extra bans would be made in that, not the old client). I think it's quite likely we move to a 10 ban system, though that's not guaranteed yet. Assuming we do go to 10 bans it's also possible Pro games and regular games might make the change at somewhat separated times (different workflows for draft matchmaking games versus tournament draft in custom games which is what Pro uses)."

Have you guys thought about a system like DOTA2 where there are some bans, some picks, some more bans, and then the rest of the picks?

We've talked about it. There's some appeal certainly. Some good arguments for it in pro play in particular as a way to both support increased diversity and a more interesting champ select. Value in regular games seems lower given you don't know who your opponents are, so bans tend to be much more frustration, general power or lane counter based than specific."

"We're looking into multiple ban formats. I'm hoping that in pre-made 5 situations we'd have a more strategic snake draft/ban system, while in solo's we'd have a faster ban system that is more focused on everyone shutting down their counters."

Ranked Rewards: The Unabridged Version

With the 2016 ranked season ending in less than two weeks, here's dArtagnan with a rundown on the 2017 season ranked rewards - how to earn them, how long you have to earn, when you'll get them, what will prevent you from getting them, and more!

"Hey everyone,

Ranked Rewards are the culmination of everyone's hard work throughout the season (or that last minute grind fest). Here are some of the exact requirements to unlock those rewards:

Loading Screen border rewards only show for certain queues. Given the different queues for the 2017 season, we haven't nailed down where these borders will show yet. We'll update once we get more info!

Ranked Dynamic Queue

To earn rewards, you must have played ALL 10 games (your placement games)

Unlike Ranked Teams, you do not need to win 10 games to earn rewards

Rewards are awarded depending on your ending rank at November 8th, 00:01, NOT your highest achieved

You must be Silver Tier and above to receive a Loading Screen border

You must be Gold Tier and above to receive the Victorious Maokai Skin (If you don't own Maokai, he will be added to your account.)

NOTE: If you purchased Maokai right before receiving Victorious Rewards, he will not be refunded.

Ranked Teams

You must have WON 10 games in a single ranked team to qualify for tier rewards that team has achieved.

You must have 10 wins on the same team, not on multiple teams

If you won 10 ranked games on a team, and then are kicked from that team, and not re-invited/rejoined you will not earn tier rewards. Player Support cannot override or change this.

You NEED to be on that team on November 8th, 00:01 in order to earn tier rewards

If you were kicked from (or left) a team for whatever reason, and then rejoin, your past wins WILL remain. You do NOT need to start over in terms of number of wins

For example, if you won 8 games, and then were kicked from (or left) the team (then re-invited), you would only need to win 2 more games, because your prior 8 wins are remembered.

If you join a new different team, you will still need to earn 10 wins on that team

The Ranked Team Ward Skin is unlocked for each individual (not team) based on how many points you individually earned on a Ranked Team during the Ranked Season:

You must WIN Ranked Team games to earn points -- Points are individually earned, not tied to specific teams

Victory in Ranked Team 3v3 - 1 point

Victory in Ranked Team 5v5 - 3 points

Points are earned from ALL Ranked Teams combined. Points do not have to be earned within a single Ranked Team. Even if you leave the team, are kicked, or if the team disbands, your points remain.

Ward Skin tiers are unlocked at 15, 30 and 45 points respectively

You must earn 15 points to earn the base Ward Skin

Things that will get your ass disqualified from Ranked Rewards

Currently banned or having active chat/ranked restrictions at November 8th, 00:01

If you got a 7 day (or more) ban issued on August 7th 00:01 or after, you will be ineligible to receive rewards.

Players banned for boosting or who were boosted during the 2016 season remain ineligible for rewards

Players who received fraud-related (including Chargeback bans) and accidental/false bans will still be eligible

Players who had LeaverBuster suspensions are still eligible

Being ineligible for 2016 Ranked Rewards does not automatically disqualify you from getting other rewards in future seasons

Reward Distribution

All rewards (Borders, banners, icons, skin wards, Victorious Maokai/Champion) will be distributed in the coming weeks. We'll give further updates as rewards are sent out regarding timelines!

Rewards are distributed in waves. If you see others with rewards, but you haven't been rewarded yet, don't panic! You will get your rewards in subsequent waves

If you want your reward border to be removed from your account for whatever reason, contact Player Support and we'll take care of it."

Champion Update Pods & Timing

With large scope Galio and Warwick champions updates in production, Reav3 jumped on the boards to talk abit about the timing of champion updates as well as the pods ( small multi discplinary teams) that work on them:

"VGU and New Champion pods are actually quite big.

Currently both New Champion and Champ Up have 3 pods. There are 3 New Champion pods, 2 VGU pods and 1 Roster Pod. Since we have ramped up ChampUp to 2 pods the cadence of Champion content has been pretty quick.

If you look back over the last year or so you will see that there has been some kind of champion release almost every month.

That is a champion release of some kind roughly every 4 weeks or so. I'm not saying we are going to maintain this cadence since some champions are more complicated and require more time then others, but I do think it might be TOO fast if we added another VGU team.

I can see a point in the future when one of the New Champion pods become a VGU pod (Or maybe some kind of hybrid team that swaps between VGU/New Champion) but I don't think we are quite at that point yet."

"Hmm. I count 5 in the last 11 months if you look at the list I posted. Poppy, Shen, Taric, Ryze & Yorick. I know Shen wasn't a full VGU but that was before we ramped up the team, so resource wise it would have been given ChampUps size right now.

It feels like a fairly reasonable pace, not sure if having a VGU every month would be the right cadence, especially if you include all the new champs and roster projects."

I actually have a question for you, if you do not mind: How come some champions didn't get new voice-overs, interactions, etc., and some others do? For example, Poppy got the whole package, but Fiora didn't get any of those. It makes me rather sad =(

In the past we only had 1 narrative writers on Champ Up. We have 2 now so that we can do new VO for all our VGUs.

Edit: We had 1 before, not 2"

As for compariong large scope champion updates and new champions, Reav3 commented:

"Quote:

It is (debateably) easier for the pods in champion creation to come up with a new champion than it is for the champion update pods to rebuild a champion with an existing character/idea already in place. That being said, I would rather see champions updated to better fit the league currently, than to see more and more champions pumped out while others are left in the dust.

VGU and New Champion timeline is pretty close to each other these days. Complexity of champion is usually what makes them take less ore more time."

In response to a comment regarding lengthy teasers for content such as champion updates, Reav3 noted:

"Quote:

I would rather have each of these slowly teased out and hyped up then just shat out every other week just to get them done. Remember, its a business, they can't make much money with an incessant stream of "product" with little to no marketing.

Actually we have found that most players dislike the very slow teasing build up marketing strategy. When it's to long players tend to lose interest or hype by the time the product is released."

Can I ask what you think about Rammus since he's pretty outdated and unintuitive but several Rioters have stated his Q is awesome

He definitely needs a full VGU. The Q could quite possibly stay though. We tend to keep skills if they work with the new directions or are still really solid/fun. (Poppy E and Sion W, for example)"

Update on Fan Contributions to Worlds 2016 Prize Pool

Riot has published an update on the fan contribution to the Worlds prize pool from the sale of Championship Zed and the Championship ward skin - total prizes now over $5,000,000!

"It’s been an incredible month of games leading up to the Finals at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Thanks for following us on the road across North America and supporting the best teams in the World on their journey to lift the Summoner’s Cup!

On the eve of Finals, here’s an update on the total prize pool that teams will take home, including all proceeds from fan purchases of Championship Zed and Championship ward skins.

Over the last few weeks, our total prize pool has been raised to $5.07MM - remember that you can still support the prize pool through November 6th, and we’ll announce the final total just after!

Check out our previous post for a breakdown of how this pool will be distributed amongst competing teams.

Thanks again for helping to support the best pro play in LoL esports. See you at the Finals!"

Quick Hits - Zac's Voice, Mordekaiser Bugs, & more

[Quick hits is our own mini news collection inside a red post collection, often including shorter or easy to digest stories and repeat information you may have missed in other posts! ]

Over on reddit, VonderHamz noted they he'd soon test the fan suggestion of making Zac's voiceover get squeakier as his health gets lower (and he gets smaller):

"I made one, probably wont throw it up because of reasons.... But I think we are going to implement this. Talking with the dude at the top of this thread (another sound designer) and seeing if we can get a designer on it to give us the hooks we need to make it happen. Will update status of this here. UPDATE - Found a designer to work with, this will probably be in an upcoming PBE cycle for testing.""

In a thread asking if Kog'Maw will be getting any additional work, Meddler replied:

"Quote:

"@Meddler: Is Kog going to be getting more work?
Once the initial pre-season patch is done, I mean.
Or are we going to have to wait for 2019 for a VGU?"

He seems a likely candidate for work later this year yeah."

[BUG FIX] RiotMEMEMEMEME noted plans to tackle the wealth of Mordekaiser bugs over the next few patches following the assassin update wrapping up.

For Brazilian players who missed the early sales for October Sales following a disruption of service at the São Paulo office, Riot Jigunoted they are extending the sales on the BR server (only) until November 1sts at 04h59 server time. Official BR page post has also been updated.

REMINDERS

To round out tonight's red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events!

The 2016 World Championship continues with FINALS onOctober 29th!

Championship Zed, Worlds 2016 summoner icons, legacy content, and more is available through November 6th! Don't forget to head to the shop to buy your championship jewels for IP to upgrade your 2016 WC summoner icons during broad cast days!

THE TEEMOING is upon us! New content such as Little Devil Teemo & Betwitching Morgana & Tristana plus legacy Halloween content in the shop through November 3rd!